Resolution
by Demented Inu
Summary: How do you comfort someone who's lost all they've ever known? Allen/Lavi.


**A/N: This was done as part of a prompt challenge on LiveJournal. This prompt was "Lost."**

"…Lavi?"

It's late, but other than that, Allen does now know of the time. The clock in the dining hall is broken, has been for a few weeks, and Komui hasn't gotten around to make someone fix it. So Allen wanders the halls like this without a clue as to the time, blinded, held tight to the knowledge that whatever the time may be, tomorrow he will do the same thing, think the same thing… It will always be the same.

For now, he only knows that it's late, because the shadows are thick and dark and spread along the floor like a carpet. But when he walks, they do not cushion his footfalls; they echo off the stony floor and the wide walls in the hallway, and he tries to walk more softly so as not to wake the others still sleeping in their rooms.

The Order is dead silent for now, other than his footsteps.

It is dark and serene and eerily quiet, but through the silence, he has heard something else. Something he couldn't have heard with his ears; no. He heard sadness and metaphorical bleeding through the many walls separating him and Lavi. Which is why he's up now, walking the stairs two at a time, practically flinging himself to Lavi's door.

He knocks once upon the wood, softly, and there is no answer, so he knocks again. Allen knows that Lavi's in there. He can hear Lavi moving behind the walls. He knocks once more, and finally moves for the knob. It's unlocked and clicks open welcomingly as if to invite him. But he knows better than to go inside. If he goes inside, the shadows may very well swallow him whole.

"Lavi?"

Lavi is standing at the window. He's dressed in his night things: simple blue pajama bottoms, his chest bare, dark red hair in a flop about his face from the lack of a headband. He's drenched in moonlight, and Allen has to squint to see him properly through the dichotomy of light and darkness.

It's a long moment before Lavi turns to face him. In his visible eye, there is the green flicker of confusion. "Oh, Allen… I didn't hear you come in."

"It was unlocked," Allen says stupidly, but Lavi only nods. Turns back to the window. This isn't like last night; no, nothing like last night. Because last night, Lavi had been holding him (tight in those warm, loving arms), had been touching him (softly with paper-light fingertips), had been nearly crying and leaning against him and tracing the—

Lavi's mouth twists upward into a smile and a shaking kind of laugh is torn from his throat, loud enough to startle Allen into wariness again. "I just… damn it." He leans forward and puts his head into his hands. The moonlight dances off his skin and causes him to look older, somehow. The way he would look years from now when he would abandon everything, abandon them all, to become Bookman. The thought stung inside of his chest.

Allen takes a deep breath and steps into the room. His skin shifts beneath his clothes as he walks forward, stepping over the piles of books strewn about the floor. "Lavi… hey." He reaches out a hand – only to find that it's his right hand he's reached out, cold and rough, and he pulls it back. Reaches with his left instead and gently plants it on Lavi's slender shoulder.

It's a moment – no longer than a heartbeat – before Lavi looks at him again. His eye patch looks silver in the moonlight and his hair casts extravagant shadows over his pretty face. Allen doesn't like what he sees there. Reflections of doubt, worry, and self-loathing. Also… grief.

It's then that he notices it. The vast emptiness in the room despite the clutter. And Lavi's green eye sparkles with tears, and he falls forward suddenly into Allen, clutching him weakly as the tears come rushing forth.

"It's not right," Lavi says, strangled against him, and through his shirt, he can feel Lavi pressing close enough to feel his heartbeat. He fights the temptation to jerk away. "Not right, Allen, it's not right…"

"I know," is all Allen can say. It's stupid and emptily given, because whatever grief he feels now is nothing compared to Lavi's devastatingly, depressingly sad expression. Like his entire world had fallen away with the other (which, in a way, it had).

He knows that he'll never be able to understand. He also knows that Lavi needs him right now more than ever. But he doesn't move. Just holds onto Lavi (fingers hooking in the thin curve of his waist) and waits until he feels himself breaking down.

"The Noah," Lavi chokes out, and it's such a strangled, whimpering noise. "All this time… working to help me become—and it was so difficult… All this time, telling me how to fight and keep a brave face, and all that ended by the fucking Noah?" His face is buried in Allen's neck. Allen feels dampness there. A mingling of breath condensation and bitter tears. "How could he do that to me?! How could he just up and leave me like that?! God damn it!"

Without warning, Lavi turns and presses the heels of his hands to his face, one into his good eye, the other into his eye patch. Allen is speechless, breathless, unsure. When Lavi turns back to him, it's a look of bitter anger and depression that passes over his face.

"After everything… Everything I did, everything he taught me… He just—" Lavi goes quiet and sits on the windowsill. This whole thing is hard to take in, and Allen just watches him for a long time before reaching forward again. This time his fingertips catch the tear falling from Lavi's cheek, trace the dampness back up, thread through the soft hair.

"Lavi. I'm sorry."

Lavi's lip trembles a moment (childish) and he takes Allen's hand in his own. There's no equivalent, no kind of simile to help describe what Allen saw. Just that Lavi was no longer anchored down by the Dark Order, no longer under any obligations. He would have to go, and there would be no good-byes because Bookmen don't give their farewells to people. They're not really leaving, after all; they'd be recorded history one day, and thus were never really gone.

"I just… The stupid old panda taught me so much. I feel so lost without him."

Floating free, and Allen cannot hold onto him anymore. But he does. Because above all else in the world – above the Akuma, above the victims, above anyone else in the Order – he loves Lavi. With all of his heart. It's a painful thing to let go when you love somebody so deeply, and so Allen grips his hair and pulls him forward and kisses him.

Lavi goes still and there's no response at first, and then they're kissing, and it's sweet and tear-salted all at once.

They cling to one another, and Allen feels himself grow desperate, and Lavi's sobs eventually die down, lost into the silence.


End file.
